eggplant and olive pizza pizza!
Why didn’t someone tell me earlier that making pizza from scratch is AWESOME and easy. The crust is easily made from ingredients that are in any kitchen. You just have to throw it together, give it some resting time for the rise and voila – crust! I had to read up on a few different sites for pizza tips which all emphasize on getting the oven really hot, but that’s about it. I used a cookie sheet dusted cornmeal and made the pizza right on top. It worked out perfectly.
Really Simple Pizza Dough (edited from Smitten Kitchen)
Makes enough for one small, thin crust pizza. Double it if you like your pizza thick and bready.
1 1/2 cups flour (can replace up to half of this with whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Stir dry ingredients, including yeast, in a large bowl. Add water and olive oil, stirring mixture into as close to a ball as you can. Dump all clumps and floury bits onto a lightly floured surface and knead everything into a homogeneous ball.
Leave it in a few minutes alone if you feel the dough isn’t easy to kneed. Then just come back to it and it’ll be a lot easier.
Knead it for just a minute or two. Lightly oil the bowl (a spritz of cooking spray perfectly does the trick) where you had mixed it — one-bowl recipe! — dump the dough in, turn it over so all sides are coated, cover it in plastic wrap and leave it undisturbed for an hour or two, until it has doubled in size.
Dump it back on the floured counter, and gently press the air out of the dough with the palm of your hands. Fold the piece into an approximate ball shape, and let it sit under that plastic wrap for 20 more minutes.
Sprinkle a pizza stone or baking sheet with cornmeal and preheat your oven to its top temperature. Roll out the pizza, toss on whatever topping and seasonings.
Bake it for about 15 minutes.
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
If you want to make the same pizza, I brushed garlicky olive oil on top of the crust, placed grilled cubed eggplant, black olives and matchstick pieces of provolone on top and stuck it in the oven.
thanksgiving
I love Thanksgiving. It’s a combination of a well roasted turkey, beautiful platters of veggies, potluck style dinner, friends and plenty of wine. This year, we hosted it at our place and made a turkey for the first time. We found this awesome recipe for a turkey consisting of a butter soaked cheesecloth laid over a seasoned turkey. The inside was filled with aromatics like carrots, apples, celery, sage and rosemary.
That last photo was a bad representation. We had more people arriving and more food coming. It was a great feast.
tomato basil soup & my favorite sandwich
I’m a big proponent of hot soups and sandwiches on a cold day. The feeling of warm soup in the body just feels calming. And it’s easy to make, plus it’s cheap. Unlike the soup lady that rips me off every week at work. $10 for a grilled cheese and a tomato basil soup…ahhhh makes me so mad!
Anyways, I looked up a recipe on allrecipes.com and it was a hit with the reviewers, so it couldn’t be that bad. I added some sauteed garlic and onion and holy begeesus it was good. And it only took 20 minutes to make. Now I want to open up my own stand next to that soup lady.
gramercy tavern cauliflower with almonds, capers & raisins
I was never a big fan of cauliflower because I’ve always had it steamed, then it becomes a soggy mess. But Michael Anthony from Gramercy Tavern posted an amazing recipe for cauliflower on nytimes and were featured on SK too. How could I resist the mix of interesting flavors? Reading the recipe, I was so confused. Granted, this was a dish from a top restaurant and all chefs love to have their own complicated cooking methods, so I ad-libbed a bit and it still turned out (what I believe to be), just as tasty.
moroccan spaghetti squash
This is actually a back post of something I made last week. It was on the dinner list – moroccan spaghetti squash. I love spaghetti squash, but it squash always takes a while to roast. But I learned that if you cut it in half, clean it and place it skin face up in a glass microwavable container with a 1/4 inch of water for 15 minutes, it comes out perfectly. It’s a bit more watery than the roasting method, but it’s fast – and I like that.
I’ve never used so many strong spices, but it made for such a savory, warming dish that I couldn’t stop eating. Don’t take it for lunch though, it might stink up the office. I loved this so much that I ran out and bought three squashes the next day to keep around.
artichoke heart quinoa
I’ve done pretty well with that list last week, so far making everything except for a cauliflower with almonds, raisins and capers recipe that I’m sure to tweek…because I lack some ingredients and the will to buy them.
But since we (me+theboyfriend) ran through basically all our food, we went to Whole Foods and did a dance down the bulk foods aisle, where I finally picked up some quinoa.
baked chicken meatballs
I’ve been craving the baked chicken meatballs Smitten Kitchen posted a week ago. Ohhh, they looked so good, along with so many other recipes on her site, so this past Sunday, I made a list of grocery items and set out to buy a week’s worth of dinner.
brie & fig
This is my new favorite snack. So delicious.
I’m making Baked Chicken Meatballs tonight. We’ll see how they turn out!
bikes & risotto
Although my whole weekend has been work-free, I haven’t had time to fit in time some cooking. Well, last night I went out to dinner with my landlord and his wife. Weird? Yeah. But it turned out great. We went to Jax, a restaurant specializing in seafood and the executive chef is Hosea from Top Chef 5. Apparently he’s on sabbatical in New Orleans so he was nowhere to be seen. But the food was still amazing. I wish I took photos, but busting out a camera when your landlord and his wife would’ve been awkward. So tonight I finally cooked and the dish du jour was lemon risotto topped with a piece of salmon.
But earlier in the day, it was mild and sunny out so we grabbed our bikes and headed out to the mountains. We went about 3 miles into the mountains before my legs wussed out and then we turned around. This was right above were we turned around.
leave a comment